Man ‘rapes’ 3 daugh­ters

A 60-year-old man from Bu­l­awayo al­legedly raped his three daugh­ters over a pe­riod of more than 12 years.

This came out when the el­dest daugh­ter (28), who is a di­vorcee, told re­gional magistrate Mr Chrispen Mberewere that her fa­ther raped her in June this year and gave her $5.

The court heard that when the woman con­sulted her younger sis­ter aged 21 about get­ting her fa­ther ar­rested, the sis­ter agreed to tes­tify, say­ing he had also raped her many times.

It emerged the man, who is a Bu­l­awayo City Coun­cil se­cu­rity guard, had also ha­bit­u­ally raped his youngest daugh­ter, whose age was not given in court.

“My fa­ther raped me once when I was 16 and I didn’t tell any­one be­cause I was un­aware of the law and he was my provider. Af­ter I sep­a­rated with my husband this year, I de­cided to go back home. One day my fa­ther came home late and asked me to wake him up at 5AM so he could get ready for work,” she said.

“At 5AM, I went to his room and found his bed­room door slightly open. I thought he was fast asleep as he didn’t re­spond to my knocks. I went into the room and shook him.”

She told the court that her fa­ther asked her to sit next to him and she re­fused. “As I re­treated to our room, my fa­ther grabbed me and cov­ered my mouth with one hand. He raped me once and put $5 in my skin tight ask­ing me not to tell any­one,” she said.

She added that her fa­ther in­vited her to come back the fol­low­ing morn­ing.

“Af­ter that I went back to our room and woke up my younger sis­ter. I asked her how she would re­act if I got our fa­ther ar­rested. She said she would sup­port me as he had raped her too.”

The court heard that the woman went to Pu­mula Po­lice Sta­tion and made a re­port, lead­ing to her fa­ther’s ar­rest.

“This is not the first time he has raped us as he raped my other younger sis­ter who is stay­ing in the ru­ral ar­eas,” said the woman.

Her 21-year-old sis­ter, who is stay­ing with the man, was the sec­ond State wit­ness and she told the court that her fa­ther had raped her.

“When my sis­ter asked if I would sup­port her de­ci­sion of get­ting my fa­ther ar­rested, I agreed. My fa­ther has raped me count­less times so I agreed to let her make the re­port,” said the woman.

In de­fence, the man claimed that he loves his el­dest daugh­ter but she was fail­ing to ac­cept his new wife. “She has never liked my new wife and will do any­thing to break up our re­la­tion­ship. She is fabri­cat­ing this story as I never did any­thing to her,” he said.